Don't let anyone tell you otherwise

Travel

So, it will seem that I just posted this immediately after the last post, but I wrote the last one yesterday. I wrote it before I seriously fucked up.

So, because I had my headphones on watching anime, I managed to misunderstand the announcement for my connecting bus and I completely missed it. I started to have a small panic attack when I realized I missed it, but managed to recover by focusing on my options. I had to wait for the supervisor to get back from break to find out if I could get rescheduled to a later bus. While I waited, I called around to try to find out if I could rent a car and just drive myself the rest of the way there. Fun fact: if you are younger than 25 and do NOT have a major CREDIT card, no one will rent to you. Why it has to be a credit card, I do not understand. It may be that you need a credit card regardless of your age. I don’t know. At that point I was too irritated with myself to really try to find out.

Fortunately, when the supervisor came back, she was able to switch me to the bus leaving at 11 and getting there at 2:20 am. Not ideal in any way, but at least I didn’t have to wait until Monday to catch the next bus. Unfortunately, the bus didn’t arrive at the destination until about 3 am. At that point, if I had been able to go to bed right then, I would have only gotten 4 hours of sleep before class. So, I called the company to tell them I was there and they sent out a shuttle. So, I went out the front doors and waited… and waited…. and waited. After half an hour, I called back and the dude managing the phone said he would call the guy and call me back. Called me back and said he would be there in 10 minutes. 15 minutes later, I called back again. Dude calls shuttle again. Shuttle should be there in 10 minutes. TWENTY MINUTES LATER I called back and the dude seemed really pissed at the guy driving the shuttle. Calls back, says 10 minutes. At this point, it’s after 4am. Fortunately, the shuttle FINALLY shows up and I heaved my heavy ass bag into the back of his van. At this point, I had been sitting or standing in exceptionally uncomfortable positions for the last 16 hours. Had to carefully heave myself into the van without my legs giving out. Drive for ANOTHER HALF HOUR because the shuttle guy had a passenger with him that I suspect slowed him down. Dropped that guy off first, but fortunately he just had to drive to the opposite side of the building to drop me off. Get in out of the rain (because OF COURSE it was raining) and the guy signing me in is lovely. Got my bag upstairs because the main elevator is broken and my room is on the third floor. By the time I finally unwound, texted my parents, and was ready for bed, it was after 5am. I couldn’t sleep well because I was so sore from all the traveling and I got up at 7am to go eat breakfast.

I have been severely sleep deprived with excessive yawning, my fine motor skills are in the shitter, and I fell asleep several times during the intro stuff today. Even with all that, I am stoked to be here. I am so excited to eventually get out on the road and see the country. The process to get to that point is very long and complicated and I will explain it properly when I’m more coherent. Everyone seems very friendly and us students are already forming a comraderie. I have my own personal room with a bed, small desk, and closet/drawers. The facility is very clean and there is a really great relationship between staff, trainers, and students. I think this could be the start of someting amazing. And possibly the start of my legs turning into solid muscle from climbing up and down 3 flights of stairs 5-10 times a day.

Sitting in the Columbus, Ohio bus station, I remember last night when it really hit me that I’m leaving home for a month or more. It really hit me that I won’t see my dog in a very long time. The last time I had to leave my dog, I had to leave her in a really bad situation and I still haven’t really forgiven myself for that. I started to feel the same things I did then: guilt, fear, despair. But then I remembered that I’m not leaving her in another bad situation. She will be properly loved and cared for even though I’m not there to do it. That realization helped more than I thought it would. Even though I’m going to miss Snickers more than anything, I’m not going to be worried for her safety. And that’s important.

Some people might think that my priorities are backward that I’m going to miss my dog the most, but I will be able to talk to my family. I can video chat with them. I can’t pet my dog. I can’t snuggle with her. She won’t be sleeping in my bed every night. And that’s how we communicate. I know some people skype with their dogs, but I know that she wouldn’t understand what was happening and it might make her more depressed. I know it will make me more depressed. So I’ll just love on her non-stop every time I get home time.

As for the bus, I’m currently on a layover. I’ve ridden Greyhound before and I will say that they continue to improve their travel experience. It’s not perfect. Nowhere near. But it’s better than the first time I took a bus in 2009. Unfortunately, they advertise the shit out of their free wifi at terminals, but I can’t connect at all. So this will be posted later, possibly tomorrow when I’m at the training center. The bus was the most crowded I have ever been on, but it’s likely that the Akron-Columbus route is more popular than Fort Wayne-Detroit. Hopefully my next bus will be less crowded. I’m a little worried about getting delayed. They already had to split a bus going to Cleveland into two trips and a 3 o’clock departure left at 4. I hope I’m not too delayed since I won’t be getting to the center until 10 pm at best.

In the mean time, I’ve got the copious amounts of anime that I downloaded last night, as well as music. I’m currently sitting in the food court and, I’ll be honest, this terminal is pretty disgusting. I’m only eating here because I don’t think I will get another chance to eat for the rest of the day. The Akron terminal, which is also the city bus station, was very nice. The cafe was closed, likely because it’s Sunday, but it was clean and aesthetically pleasing. The Columbus station is clearly quite old, smells like you think a bus station would, and is in slight disrepair. I hope they update the station soon. It is quite large and clearly heavily used, so it may not be efficient to combine it with the city bus station. It would need quite a bit of space, which is pretty limited in downtown Columbus. I’ve noticed quite a few cities combining their Greyhound stations with their main bus stations, which makes sense. Especially for smaller cities that don’t have as much traffic through their Greyhound terminal, it is much more cost effective to combine the two, instead of paying for electricity, plumbing, AC, etc. for just a handful of people a few hours a day. It also means they can potentially pool their resources to keep the station better cleaned and in good condition.

I’m just rambling because I’m bored. My layover is at least 4 hours, depending on when my next bus shows up and I still have at least another hour to go. Oh! I almost forgot! Our bus got pulled over on the way here by the cops. They boarded and said they were looking for someone, asked for ID’s from a few people who, I’m assuming, fit the profile of the guy they were looking for. It was very strange. We pulled over into a, currently, unused construction site with nothing but a shack and port-a-potty and we were like, “Shit, what you gonna do to us in that shed?” It was weird.

Anyway, I’ll try to update tomorrow and depending on wifi, I may post twice tomorrow. See you then!

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I'm a millenial trying to navigate the complex and terrifying world of adulthood without the advice of other, more qualified adults. All I've got to go on are my own experiences and the absolutely obscene amount of time I have to research stuff so I sound more "adulty."
So, if you're a fellow millenial trying to figure out how to do shit and failing, let's commiserate together and try to figure out how to do it better next time.